In the manufacture of plastic cards such as identification cards, credit cards, medical record cards, and the like, a number of operations are performed on such cards. The cards may be embossed, magnetic tapes applied thereto, photographs secured to the same, signature panels applied, and many other operations which are well known in the art. One of the most exacting operations is the applying to these cards of coded symbols such as character sets for optical character recognition (hereinafter called OCR for convenience) and bar codes, such as UPC (universal product code) which may be read with appropriate optical reading systems. Systems of this type are described in the book "Optical Character Recognition" by Fisher, Pollock, Raddock and Stevens, Library of Congress Card Number 63-20445. It is highly desirable that the printing of the coded symbols be very precise so that high quality printing results. If the coded sumbols have sharp images, good color contrast, and proper orientation, they are more easily readable by the appropriate reading systems. In fact, the degree of sophistication for the reading system is inversely proportional to the quality of the printed coded symbols.
Although machines have been made heretofore to apply OCR and bar codes to a card, more to date has been able to achieve the quality desired with the high speed necessary for the economic production of such cards. Generally, these coded symbols have been placed upon a panel and then the panel applied to the card by appropriate means. Usually the card then has a protective overlay disposed upon the panel bearing these coded symbols.
One interesting method of performing an operation on a credit card is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,757,684 issued to Jacob H. Drillick. This U.S. patent discloses a method for embossing a credit card. Selectively operable punch and die pairs are provided with cooperating interposers wherein a credit card may be embossed by the simultaneous movement of the punch and die. Although U.S. Pat. No. 3,757,684 discloses apparatus which is highly efficient for the embossing of cards, attempts to apply the use of this apparatus for the printing of coded symbols upon the cards was found to be less satisfactory. The primary difficulty in using the apparatus disclosed by Drillick for the printing of OCR and bar codes is the fact that cards such as credit cards normally have a plus or minus 10% variation in thickness. Although this variation in thickness is not critical in the embossing operation, it becomes highly detrimental where precise printing pressure must be applied. To achieve the high quality printing desirable for OCR and bar code printing, certain desirable features of the apparatus disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,757,684 have ben incorporated into a printing apparatus which yields the high quality printing desirable with a high rate of production, and reference may be made to said patent for a detail description of portions which form part of this invention.